mod_fcgid: stderr: PHP Fatal error: Call to undefined function mbstring_binary_safe_encoding()

Question

Since one week I got sometimes a 500 server error in my Wordpress website. I contacted my host and they gave me the following info.

Each time I got a white screen (so the 500 error) the following error was given:

mod_fcgid: stderr: PHP Fatal error:  Call to undefined function mbstring_binary_safe_encoding()

Does anyone know what this means and how I can fix this problem? Thanks!

Answer 1

That is a Wordpress function that is not being included for some reason.

Have you upgraded Wordpress recently or made any other changes?

See this: https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress/blob/master/wp-includes/functions.php

I suggest you upgrade Wordpress to the latest version and if not, get a clean version of the latest files, re apply your plugins and themes and then point that at your current database